Greenhouses, the secret for cut flowers?

Experiments on with technology that will regulate temperature in any climate

A bouquet of bright, colourful smiling faces of gerbera will definitely cheer up even the dullest person. Unfortunately, so far, the attempts to grow these, or any other cut flowers have not been done on a large scale in the Union Territory.

Now, this situation is about to change, with the Agriculture Department experimenting with a new technology greenhouse that will help regulate the temperature even in the hottest weather. This will help to grow cut flowers like gerbera and anthurium, Agriculture Officer S. Prabhakaran explained.

People living in Ashok Nagar in Lawspet may have noticed the 1,008 square meter greenhouse being constructed. For the past year or so, the Rs. 17.4 lakh project was in the construction phase and it was completed less than a month ago. Although the work is completed, the Department plans to test its efficiency before distributing it to the farmers.

At present, they are still deciding how to go about the project, and there are some ideas of introducing a public private partnership to grow the flowers inside this hh-tech greenhouse. The work is expected to start in a month or two, he said.

This greenhouse was constructed with funding from the National Agriculture Development Program.

In the meanwhile, for the local farmers, the Agriculture Department has also started a new scheme to encourage more people to construct greenhouses through the National Horticulture Mission.

Before the Cyclone Thane, around 10 farmers had constructed greenhouses, but nine of them were damaged during the cyclone.

Now, to encourage other farmers as well to build greenhouses, the NHM provides a 50 per cent subsidy and the state Government has recently introduced an additional 25 per cent subsidy for the farmers.

This subsidy is available for greenhouses for up to 400 square meters in size, he said.